Google, you can do better..

Last week, I was trying to look up old posts to link to something I was writing.

Three for three, the Google ads on the right sidebar were something like this.. 

My first thought was "hey, don't I know the woman in the top picture? have seen her somewhere before!"

Then realized that it is exactly the same ad where I had seen her before. the mind is a funny thing. It makes these associations.

Yes. I agree. There IS a "sweet Asian Woman I should be with" and she has a name already.. Sangeetha! 

If Google was smart enough, it would have figured it out. 

On the bright side, they have figured out the right demographic based on my travel habits.  For a good six months they were showing ads for the "sweet Russian woman I should be with". Sooner or later they will zero in on "Indian woman I should be with", then figure out I am already with a sweet woman and finally pitch me something else. Or so one hopes.. 

For crying out loud, there are very few things that are interesting to me right now Google. My life is an open blog!

Work, Home and Bikram Yoga

If it is work, pitch me things that will make travel a breeze (doesn't have to be sweet Asian women.. that is taking it to an extreme)

If it is home, it has to be "back to school" related.. pitch me something that I will be tempted to buy for the kids or for myself, which is restricted to food and photography (don't bother with the Nikon ads either. You should have figured out that I am too deeply invested in Canon to move now after 25 years). As for buying things for the "sweet girl", she would rather buy it herself. So you have to work a little harder and pitch me those things based on what she is checking out online. A little help there would be nice!

If it is Yoga, then you know what you can pitch.

It IS really that simple!

Instant Jaya Lakshmi and Tamil Girls for a price

You have probably heard of instant noodles and Instant Idiyappam and even instant soup..

But have you heard of Instant Jaya Lakshmi?

The google ads that pop up on the sidebar on gmail have always provided me with a source of amusement.

Today was no different. was reading an email from Tamil School and on the side there were the usual "find hot pics of Kavya" type ads... (guess if there is someone called Kavya on the cc list, it picks up this ad!)

So you can imagine how uncorrelated the ads are to the context.

Today we found Instant Jaya Lakshmi and as an added bonus found out that there is a place where you can get a good price on Tamil girls!

They have become a commodity now! Apparently there is so much competition for Tamil Girls that there are 500 sites selling them. Told Jr. that they are virus sites and you should not click on the ads on the side, even if you are curious...

I let my daughter read the emails we get from Tamil School. Do Not think Google Ads are safe anymore for kids.

There is no screening of any kind on these ads.

Seriously thinking of taking away Jr.'s email till she is a little older...

.

Adsense

Today we were having dinner with a relative who works at google.

He convinced me to use Adsense. He was asking me why I don't use Adsense. I did not understand. Told him that

1. somehow the ads would clutter up the template
2. don't care about the money
3. don't want to be indirectly responsible for suggesting products that I might not recommend

and he said "totally not true!"

You can completely select what kind of contextual ads to place and it might actually help you, if not the people who read your blog and point them to some interesting related links..

So tried it.. and it messed up my template for sure. So have signed up for an account and now I have to figure out how to get it into the sidebar instead of the top of the blog!

If google wants me to use Adsense, they should make it more idiot proof for simpletons like me (who are still on the same old template from four years ago!).

Maybe those who have this on their blog can give me some pointers?

Does this actually help point you to interesting links?

.